Biography of Kenneth Branagh

The new Olivier

December 10, 1960
Kenneth Charles Branagh was born on 10 December 1960 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, second of three children in a proletarian Protestant family. In 1969 the Branagh moved to England, in Reading, looking for new job opportunities for the father. His Irish roots are never absorbed by the English way of life, but will become a hallmark of the man and the artist, sensitive to the issue of conflict of identity of an individual. At the age of fifteen years Kenneth Branagh is a representation of "Hamlet," with Derek Jacobi as the Danish Prince, and enlightening experience, followed by a meeting with Jacobi itself, led him to decide to become an actor. This is one of the moments that mark the growth of young Branagh. He himself feels that leave England for working in Australia as a professional is a first step towards a new phase of his life. From 1979 to 1981 he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, where he graduated. But Branagh received writing proposals already before finishing the academic course, which, among other things, resulted in a production of Hamlet, in which he played the main character. Here were evident histrionic qualities. In addition, the Academy has very important professional relationships with fellow actors than with the Academy's teachers, yet durable.
Concludes her studies at RADA in December 1981, winning several awards including the "Bancroft Gold Medal". At the same time it is cast in a production of Another Country, in the West End of London, in the role of Judd. This interpretation allows him to attract the interest of critics and win, in 1982, the Society of West End Theatres ' Award "for best new promise of British theatre and the" Plays and Players ' Award for best newcomer. From that moment begins an intense activity as a stage actor, film and television and later by stage director. The first is a television gig as Billy in "Too Late to Talk to Billy," a drama for the BBC by Graham Reid, set in his native Belfast. Accept this role isn't just easy, filming takes place in Belfast, but the dates of such shootings coincide with the days of representation of "Hamlet." The first decision to Branagh is to reject the part of Billy for not renouncing to participate in the Shakespearean play, but being really the actor best suited to the character the producers found a meeting point to enable him to not give up. This is for Branagh the first glimpse of hectic work and cerebrally challenging, as recalled in the Beginning, which will steadily rise.
To this period belong the sitcoms Boy in the Bush, shot in Australia, Coming Through (Ode to youth of the writer D.H. Lawrence) and Fortunes of War, which begins his artistic Association and romantically involved with Emma Thompson. In the same period Branagh begins his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing the role of Laertes King of Navarre in the legendary Henry V. In 1987, tired of the pressures "State" and the strong static nature of the RSC, creates its own theatre company and shortly after a film production company, la Renaissance Films. In 1989 bride Emma Thompson and shot his first feature film, Henry V, who consecrated the new Laurence Olivier. Also get a fair television success with the series "Billy" trilogy "and" The boy in The bush. In 1991, in Los Angeles, under the supervision of Sidney Pollack, Branagh makes a thriller: "Another crime", followed by the short film "the swan song" (also nominated for an Oscar) and Peter's friends, both from 1992. In 1993 realized in Italy "much ado about nothing", getting a huge success with audiences and critics. In calls at the Court of Francis Ford Coppola for the realization of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, project that if on paper it looks adventurous and successful, in reality turns out to be an unmitigated disaster both economical and of image.
The first October 1995 Branagh officially announces, during a press conference, his separation from Emma Thompson. In the same year, leaving the small and delightful "in the middle of a cold winter," premiered in Venice and Othello, in which the Irish actor magisterially the part of Iago. At the beginning of 1996 news spreads of a new relationship with the actress Helena Bonham Carter, his companion in misfortune in Frankenstein, but the report will be made official until the beginning of 1998. In 1996 turns Hamlet in the full four hours, realizing his dream: to bring to a wide audience the most famous Shakespearean text in its entirety. The film was a modest critical acclaim and two Academy Award nominations, but it resolves to a general economic failure. After completion of this undertaking, Branagh prefers to take a couple of sabbatical years and is dedicated exclusively to screen acting. Are the biennium 1997/98 "The Gingerbread Man" by Robert Altman, "Celebrity" by Woody Allen, "The Proposition" and "The theory of flight, the latter rode the Bonham Carter. Of 2000, "sorrows of labours lost" movie in which Branagh entrusts the text shakespaeriano to musicals, moving the plot in 1939, in full period in which Hollywood live the happy moment of "gone with the wind" and "Stagecoach". One of his last successful interpretations was professor Gilderoy Hallock, in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of secrets" (2002), film adaptation of J.K. Rowling's novels, one of the lucky ones. In 2006, in a production of "As You Like It-as you like it," Kenneth Branagh is back to sign a new adaptation of Shakespeare's classic. At a time when the protagonists of Marvel Comics change from cinema to become sure blockbuster, the publishing house Marvel gave Branagh directed the movie "Thor," which is due for release in the year 2011.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.